Liz & Chazz's bright and geeky wedding love-fest

The offbeat bride: Liz, English as a Foreign Language Teacher (and OBT Member)

Her offbeat partner: Chazz, English as a Foreign Language Teacher

Location & date of wedding: The Hidden Gardens, Hinesburg, VT — June 21, 2009

What made our wedding offbeat: We threw out much of the book on weddings. I wasn't into wearing all white, so I went with a custom Wai-Ching ensemble in red and orange. Neither of us are religious, so we didn't have an officiant- we married ourselves Quaker-style. We used the Beatles for processional music, video game loading screen music for seating the guests, victory fanfare from Final Fantasy XII for the kiss, and our friend (who is an opera singer) sang our recessional.

We also decided that dancing would endanger our guests, so instead we played "I Won't Dance" by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong and encouraged other people to dance if they were so moved. We also realized on the day of the wedding, that everyone except for the groom in our wedding party was LGB or Q. Even the ushers.

I think what made our wedding the most offbeat was simply having it at all. People told us we were too young, too foolish, and in my case, too sick to do it in the first place. So while the touches of red and orange, the parasols instead of bouquets, the many skipped wedding traditions, and the DIY hairpieces were all very offbeat, we made a much bigger statement just by getting married at all.

Tell us about the ceremony: We used a Quaker template for the ceremony, though neither of us are religious. We had no officiant, and bound ourselves together in marriage. We also had two friends do readings at the beginning of the ceremony, with our only request being that the reading somehow be about love. Ben, a good friend of ours, wrote an essay about love and marriage that was beautiful. Hannah, the Groomswoman, read the e.e.cummings poem, "I carry your heart". Our friend Jane, an operatic singer, chose to sing "If Music Be the Food of Love" as our recessional, which was also incredibly fitting as we are both amateur foodies.

Our wedding wasn't about any one culture, but about including all of the things that make us who we are. From the pastries we love made by our favorite tearoom, to the homemade iced tea and the video game music used in the ceremony, it was a uniquely "us" wedding.

Our biggest challenge: Our biggest challenges were two-fold. We only had six months from engagement to ceremony because we were moving to the Czech Republic that July. It meant that we were planning on a tight schedule, and needed to make sure all of our vendors were going to be able to stick to it. My Wai-Ching dress came in a month before the wedding and thankfully didn't need alterations. Everything worked out, but it wasn't easy to pull off, especially given our $5000 budget. We ended up DIYing a lot of things.

Our other challenge was opposition from family. Some of the family voiced concerns about my health (I have fibromyalgia, but am in remission), about our age, and about whether or not I was suitable for marriage. It was extremely stressful, and on a number of occasions we thought about scrapping the whole thing and eloping. Had it not been for the rest of our very supportive family, we probably would have. Fences have been mended as of writing this, but it doesn't change the fact that our biggest challenge was simply getting to the wedding day without a breakdown from the stress of family drama. A huge thanks to those supportive and amazing other family members is deserved.

My favorite moment: Definitely the vows, which we wrote ourselves the night before the wedding. We didn't tell each other what we had written, but somehow we both managed to include some of the same details in them (ie. Chazz's tendency to physically get in the way no matter what I'm doing, my tendency to stay up all hours of the night unless I'm reminded to sleep).

The toasts that our family and friends gave were also deeply meaningful. Our fathers both gave lovely toasts, along with our friends in the wedding party. We had all walks of life and all faiths represented in one way or another at our wedding, and hearing everyone speak about love in their own words was really something else.

My advice for offbeat brides:Things always go wrong. Even the best thought out plans with back-up contingencies can be foiled. My bridal bouquet was meant to be entirely different from what it ended up being, and I got a phone call the day I was leaving for a weekend getaway with friends (joint Bachelor/ette party) where I would have no reception or internet access that the flowers might not be in. I left it in my mother's capable hands. It wasn't the first or the last thing that didn't go as planned, but we just rolled with it. So remember that stuff *will* go wrong, breathe, and have someone who you trust that can deal with those little snags as they come up, because you probably won't have time.

I would also advise brides not be afraid to ask non-wedding vendors about their services. Our delicious pastries were made by a local woman who typically only bakes for sale in stores/restaurants. We approached her about doing our small wedding and she was more than happy to do it and a total dream to work with.

Lastly, I highly recommend having someone videotape the event. Everything goes so quickly that it's over before you realize it started. We just had a cousin with a hand held video camera (originally so the groom's ninety-five year old grandfather could have a DVD of it), and we are really glad we did. The details will always be there.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your wedding? For me, it was about what I can and cannot handle. I think as a couple we learned how to handle opposition as a unified front, and how to support each other when things aren't going well with the outside world. Learning how to manage stress and family trouble as a couple is important, and we had a crash course during our six month engagement. Most importantly, I think we learned a lot about ourselves and what we value in the process of planning. We didn't care about flowers or if the Maid of Honor and Groomswoman matched, but we both cared about the food. The process brought us closer together in many ways, even in ways we didn't expect.

Care to share a few vendor/shopping links?

• Bride's Dress: Wai-Ching
• Men's Attire: Men's Wearhouse
• Pastries: Dasha's Bohemian Cookies
• Cupcakes: Bristol Bakery and Cafe
• Lanterns/Parasols: Luna Bazaar

Enough talk — show me the wedding porn!

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